From the course: Leadership Stories: 5-Minute Lessons in Leading People

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Give inventors needed room to invent

Give inventors needed room to invent

From the course: Leadership Stories: 5-Minute Lessons in Leading People

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Give inventors needed room to invent

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- Sometimes getting your employees to be more creative isn't the problem. The problem is getting their less than imaginative boss to give them the space to invent. Innovation isn't a linear process. Inventors need the freedom to play with ideas, to see what fruit they'll eventually produce. A well-meaning boss might thinK he's doing his job by keeping his team focused on the most productive areas, but when you insist on knowing what the fruit will be before allowing the play, some of the most revolutionary ideas might never be discovered. So here's an example that illustrates that point in a way that I think even the most controlling of bosses will understand. One evening, young James was in the kitchen with his aunt having a cup of tea. Now, while his aunt was having the tea, James was standing at the stove watching the tea kettle boil. And he was just fascinated with it, right? He was watching the jet of steam come out the top of the kettle. And he had a spoon, and he held it up…

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